Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Black and White in Color (1976)

Viewed from either a
political or a technical perspective, Black
and White in Color­­—a coproduction from France and the Ivory Coast that
won its year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Film—is highly impressive. The
directorial debut of Jean-Jacques Annaud, Black
and White in Color is a slick production with flawless costuming,
photography, and production design, transporting viewers to West Africa circa
1915. Scenes inside dusty villages and military encampments are just as
visually persuasive as scenes taking place on battlefields that sprawl from
unforgiving plains to verdant jungles. Politically, the picture is just as
strong, delivering a simple antiwar message by way of a quasi-farcical
storyline about imperialist Europeans drawing unsuspecting Africans into
pointless armed conflict. Yet there’s sometimes a gulf between ambitions and
results. For all of its high-minded goals, Black
and White and Color has significant shortcomings, worst of which is a
tendency toward shallow characterizations. Annaud and his collaborators stuff
the film with so many characters that none can be developed fully, so it’s hard
to feel much emotional connection with the people onscreen, beyond normal
sympathy for individuals mired in tragic circumstances. Given this weakness, Black and White in Color works better as
a statement than as a story.

The gist of the piece is that two European forts are
situated in close proximity to each other, one occupied by French colonists and
one occupied by Germans colonists. When French geologist Hubert Fresnoy
(Jacques Spiesser) receives a care package containing months-old newspapers, he
and his Gallic colleagues learn their country is at war with Germany. Despite
the fact that the conflagration has been underway for some time with no impact
on their lives, some of the Frenchmen experience a surge of nationalism and
resolve to attack the German fort. They recruit natives as soldiers, offering
household trinkets as payment. Tragedy, predictably, ensues.

While some of the
satirical moments in Black and White and
Color are relatively subtle, too many are obvious. In one scene, for
instance, a French priest rides in a chair carried by several natives, who sing
in their own language about Europeans striking them as obese and odiferous.
Oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics, the priest declares, “Oh, how I love
this song!” Annaud films everything beautifully, whether he’s using long lenses
to capture documentary-style details during crowd scenes or staging a
trench-warfare scene in a rainy jungle ravine to amplify the physical
discomforts of combat situations. He also gets a few scenes just right, notably
the long sequence of a Frenchman leading a group over a tiny stream and
pretending it’s the Rhine. Of such delusions horrific jingoistic arrogance is
born. Nonetheless, Black and White in
Color grows repetitive soon after the “declaration of war,” and it was a
miscalculation to avoid making any of the Africans major characters. Annaud
conveys considerable anthropological curiosity with his shots of natives going
about everyday activities, but he inadvertently relegates Africans to the
status of second-class citizens, which is one of the very things he skewers his
European characters for doing.